What on earth is General Tso's chicken?

[sqbr]

I keep meaning to post about cultural appropriation since I think it's a really important and interesting issue, but since I'm still figuring it out my ideas never quite coalesce. But in the meantime White American culture is General Tso’s Chicken and Chop Suey.

The video (by Jennifer 8. Lee) is definitely worth watching, about the way that "chinese american" food is as american as beer and pizza and the history of it's invention and misrepresentation.
It's interesting as someone from a different non-chinese country, with it's own different "chinese" food. It took me years to figure out what "egg rolls" and "pot stickers" were :)

The article (by Restructure) is more interested in why this is bad.

Something Restructure brings up in the comments which really pinged for me is that people go on about "authenticity" and it gets this social cache (ie "authentically exotic" food/clothes/music etc as a sign of being cosmopolitan) when what we should worry about is if something is representative.

My thoughts, disclaimer 3b applies. The many Authentic Chinese People on my flist are welcome to thwap me for spouting crap :)

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with people outside China eating "Chinese" food which has little similarity to anything eaten in China. As long as people are aware that it's not "Chinese food", it's a new cuisine which owes as much to the country it's made in as the country it's "from" (like tex-mex compared to actual mexican food, a distinction which in my experience gets lost outside america)

I'm still figuring out what we as (white) individuals can do about this though, beyond just becoming aware of and admitting our own ignorance. Also our own subjectivity: chinese food as eaten in China may seem odd and unappetising to western palettes, but that doesn't make it bad, it just makes us products of a different culture with its own tastes. EDIT: and as both the video and stephiepenguin point out, being aware of the specific racist history behind a lot of this stuff. It's not just benign cultural exchange.

Some people might argue that we should try to only eat representative/"authentic" food, but I'm not sure that's helpful or even possible. Cultures don't divide up neatly like that(*), and if white people eat chinese food we're always going to tend to support business which cater to more western tastes, and if we don't then we're costing chinese restauranteurs business.
EDIT (thanks to commenters): Also there is no one "authentic" way of cooking anything: cultures are complicated and blurry and have lots of subtle subdivisions, and within that you have all the individual cooks who have their own tastes and restrictions. I think the idea of "authenticity" ties into the tendency for people to homogenise the "Other". This is particularly bad when done to "chinese", an adjective which applies to a huge range of subcultures and peoples both inside China and out.

I don't know. I always feel a bit overwhelmed when I consider these situations where the individual actions of rich/white/western people, all made from rational matters of taste/self interest(**), add up to negative social patterns. Because usually it's the case that simplistically moving in the opposite direction causes a different problem, like gentrification vs segregation or white flight. I think I need to gain some levels in anti-racist thinking before I can get my head around it :)

I have such a craving for "chinese" food now...

(*)Note the way that much "chinese" food in Australia is not only chinese-australian food, but chinese-malaysian-australian etc. And why should asian chefs be forced to stick with "authentic" dishes if they want to create something different?
(**)Plus a hefty dose of racism in many cases. But even if not, the racist/classist etc culture they're made in twists the effects

Comments

[grahame.livejournal.com]

White American culture is General Tso’s Chicken and Chop Suey is an angry and trite essay. Apparently most people in America don't know that Amercian-Chinese food, derived in some sense from Chinese food, isn't actually what people eat in China. The essay then draws a line from that to the horror of white Americans trying to relate to Chinese americans (or just racial Chinese) through the 'chinese' food they eat.

How terrible that people try to find something in common with people they meet to start a conversation. How incredibly offense! I'm wringing my hat!

I can't state enough how much it annoys me that people ascribe terrible motives or underlying currents of racism to these things. Sure, it's a situation rooted in ignorance, but it doesn't seem something to get angry about. Knowing the history of Chinese-American food is interesting, perhaps this angry person should just educate people, and maybe calm down!

[alias_sqbr]

The main thing I was linking to was the video. I didn't 100% like the way the article was written myself(*), but on the other hand she made some good points (especially the later comment about authentic vs representative)

But I have to say I find it hard to see why you get disproportionately angry at people getting disproportionately angry about racism, especially since racism is a much more significant and destructive problem than people getting disproportionately angry about racism. If people can get angry about casting decisions and video games(**), why not about ignorance which causes measurable harm? Aren't anti-racists allowed to have angry rants?

I didn't read it as that angry anyway, and she is trying to educate people, thus the way the major points were bulleted and then bolded.

As for the "trying to find something in common" thing, I'm not sure I can get it across since it's not something I've experienced myself. A more extreme example, though, is the way my mum met gelignite for the first time and doggedly tried to start up a conversation about the Ming Dynsasty. Because obviously, being australian-raised and malaysian-born but ethnically chinese she must be interested ancient chinese history.

(*)Though I get the feeling I'm mainly just not used to her writing style
(**)To give two examples of things I've seen people get really angry about recently